Most of the leaders of military coups in African countries were trained by the United States and were proteges of Washington, member of the US House of Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) said at a hearing at the House Committee on Armed Services of the lower house of the US Congress, dedicated to considering the situation in Africa and the Middle East.
“If you look at Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, in a lot of these countries the coup is led by someone we trained,” he said.
Gaetz then asked the head of the US Africa Command, General Michael Langley, how many African military coup leaders the United States had trained.
"You’ll get your answer, Congressman, but let me say: there is no correlation and there is no causation of US training to these members of [the] coup," Langley replied.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, because in a dozen countries, the coups leaders are people whom we trained,” the legislator continued.
Furthermore, Gaetz recalled that in March 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Niger “a model of resilience, a model of democracy, a model of cooperation,” and just a year later, Niger rebels broke the military agreement with Washington.
"A year and a day after our government said they were the model of resilience and democracy, they’re throwing us out by the scrubs of our neck. Is it safe to say that this failed, General Langley?" he wondered.
However, he got the same answer.
“It is safe to say that there’s no correlation or causation of US training to a coup happening. Period,” the head of the Africa Command reiterated.
Gaetz noted that the United States has invested about $500 million in Niger, but the African country is still turning to collaboration with Russia.
“The Russians are the preferred security partner. And we’re training the coup leaders,” he emphasized.
Another Congressman, Austin Scott (R-Georgia), also voiced concerns about Niger. He asked why the cooperation between Niger and the United States fell through so quickly, and how Russia managed to build a partnership with the African country in the same time frame.
“The US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in that country, […] less than a year ago it was one of our strongest partners. We are now being […] pushed out of the country, and they have turned towards Russia. Can you outline for me how this partnership fell apart so fast and how was the Russian military able to so quickly become […] Niger’s partner of choice? And it is baffling to me that we just totally missed it from the standpoint of our intelligence community,” he said.
Langley responded that the partnership "is failing because it is being drowned out." He argued that Russia’s successes in Africa were due to the fact that Moscow allegedly waged a “disinformation campaign” in the region for many years.
On March 16, Niger announced the termination of the military agreement with the United States with an immediate effect. It happened right after a visit to Niger by a US government delegation. The reasons for such a decision were that the agreement was "deeply unjust in its essence" and "not in line with the aspirations and interests of the people of Niger," according to Nigerien government spokesman Col. Amadou Abdramane.
Many netizens on the X platform applauded the move as a step towards establishing Niger's sovereignty and removing the influence of Western "colonial" and "imperialist" forces.
The Nigerien transitional government earlier also announced the termination of military agreements with France, Niger's former colonial master. The withdrawal of the French military was completed at the end of December 2023. Thousands of Nigeriens took to the streets to celebrate this.
This week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said that Niger, together with Burkina Faso and Mali, need international support as they are "on the front line of the fight against trans-African terrorism and defending their own sovereignty." He also underlined the importance of "neutral and constructive" development of the Sahel region that would go in line with the interests of the nations in the region.